“PETER DUNCOMBE and Saunders Dancer, who lived at the Naked Boy in Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, removed to the Naked Boy and Mitre, near Sommerset House, Strand,” &c.—Postboy, January 2-4, 1711.
“RICHARD MEARES, Musical Instrument maker, is removed from y’ Golden Viol in Leaden Hall Street to y’ North side of St Paul’s Churchyard, at y’ Golden Viol and Hautboy, where he sells all sorts of musical instruments,” &c.—[Bagford bills.]
To increase this complexity still more, came the corruption of names arising from pronunciation; thus Mr Burn, in his introduction to the “Beaufoy Tokens,” mentions the sign of Pique and Carreau, on a gambling-house at Newport, Isle of Wight, which was Englished into the Pig and Carrot; again, the same sign at Godmanchester was still more obliterated into the Pig and Checkers. The sign of the Island Queen I have frequently heard, either in jest or in ignorance, called the Iceland Queen. The editor of the recently-published “Slang Dictionary” remarks that he has seen the name of the once popular premier, George Canning, metamorphosed on an alehouse-sign into the George and Cannon; so the Golden Farmer became the Jolly Farmer; whilst the Four Alls, in Whitechapel, were altered into the Four Awls. Along with this practice, there is a tendency to translate a sign into a sort of jocular slang phrase; thus, in the seventeenth century, the Blackmoorshead and Woolpack, in Pimlico, was called the Devil and Bag of Nails by those that frequented that tavern, and by the last part of that name the house is still called at the present day. Thus the Elephant and Castle is vulgarly rendered as the Pig and Tinderbox; the Bear and Ragged Staff, the Angel and Flute; the Eagle and Child, the Bird and Bantling; the Hog in Armour, the Pig in Misery; the Pig in the Pound, the Gentleman in Trouble, &c.
Some further information, in illustration of the different signboards, is to be obtained from the Adventurer, No. 9, (1752:)—
“It cannot be doubted but that signs were intended originally to express the several occupations of their owners, and to bear some affinity in their external designations with the wares to be disposed of, or the business carried on within. Hence the Hand and Shears is justly appropriated to tailors, and the Hand and Pen to writing-masters; though the very reverend and right worthy order of my neighbours, the Fleet-parsons, have assumed it to themselves as a mark of ‘marriages performed without imposition.’ The Woolpack plainly points out to us a woollen draper; the Naked Boy elegantly reminds us of the necessity of clothing; and the Golden Fleece figuratively denotes the riches of our staple commodity; but are not the Hen and Chickens and the Three Pigeons the unquestionable right of the poulterer, and not to be usurped by the vender of silk or linen?
“It would be useless to enumerate the gross blunders committed in this point by almost every branch of trade. I shall therefore confine myself chiefly to the numerous fraternity of publicans, whose extravagance in this affair calls aloud for reprehension and restraint. Their modest ancestors were contented with a plain Bough stuck up before their doors, whence arose the wise proverb, ‘Good Wine needs no Bush;’ but how have they since deviated from their ancient simplicity! They have ransacked earth, air, and seas, called down sun, moon, and stars to their assistance, and exhibited all the monsters that ever teemed from fantastic imagination. Their Hogs in Armour, their Blue Boars, Black Bears, Green Dragons, and Golden Lions, have already been sufficiently exposed by your brother essay-writers:—
‘Sus horridus, atraque Tigris,
Squamosusque Draco, et fulva cervice Leæna.
Virgil.
‘With foamy tusks to seem a bristly boar,
Or imitate the lion’s angry roar;
Or kiss a dragon, or a tiger stare.’—Dryden.
“It is no wonder that these gentlemen who indulged themselves in such unwarrantable liberties, should have so little regard to the choice of signs adapted to their mystery. There can be no objection made to the Bunch of Grapes, the Rummer, or the Tuns; but would not any one inquire for a hosier at the Leg, or for a locksmith at the Cross Keys? and who would expect anything but water to be sold at the Fountain? The Turkshead may fairly intimate that a seraglio is kept within; the Rose may be strained to some propriety of meaning, as the business transacted there may be said to be done ‘under the rose;’ but why must the Angel, the Lamb, and the Mitre be the designations of the seats of drunkenness or prostitution?